A corporate drone adrift in a sea of desks, C.C. Baxter (Lemmon)
hopes to land a promotion by letting his higher-ups use his place
for their after-hours sexual escapades. Things turn sour when the
elevator operator (MacLaine) with whom C.C. has become smitten gets
romantically involved with his married boss, and the two become
regulars at the apartment. Shot through with Wilder’s trademark
acerbic humor, but anchored by a tender empathy for its characters
and a deeply felt evocation of the New York winter blues, The
Apartment finds the Hollywood romantic comedy caught between
its innocent beginnings and the incipient sexual liberation of the
60s. The result is a multiple-Oscar-winning classic with an
emotional resonance and tonal complexity rarely seen in the genre
before or since.